Category Archives: exploring the universe

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My stationery dreams came true in Taiwan. I probably got too carried away but no regrets, for sure. My friend Ella mentioned that what she loved about Taiwan is how they had so much awesome stationery merchandise by local artists from stickers to washi tapes and I’m glad that locally that’s starting to happen in my country too. There are now a lot of locally-designed washi and numerous stickers from various Filipino artists in stores like Common Room and Craft Central and that makes me happy. Ella mentioned a shop called Ma Ma Umbrella shop near Songshan cultual park and we spent a good 2 and a half hours there, just browsing and shopping hehe.

I had a hard time choosing which to buy because they were all so lovely and well-made.

We also went to several Eslite branches and I wasn’t able to take photos because I was in a hurry to shop haha. We still had a lot of items in our itinerary and the day was almost ending eep.

Finally got to try the OG milk tea from Chun Shui Tang. The inventor of bubble tea in Taiwan, they said. This was inside Eslite in Songshan Cultural Park. 30% sugar and the chewinees of the pearls were perfect. My fave from this trip.

The foodtrucks outside Eslite were cute:

We also tried this jasmine and lime concoction from Ice Monster. I can’t imagine being able to finish this by myself, look at how massive it is:

We went to the Red House at Ximending:

The lines were so long in this stall selling popcorn chicken called Ji Guang Xiang Xiang Ji. Or 1973 chicken?

The best popcorn chicken I’ve tasted, and best calamari too! Or something like calamari? Our order came with fried squid which was fried in the same batter as the chicken. Really yummy. While my gf stayed in line here, I got a bit lost because I was looking for milk tea for our drink. I wanted to try fiftea here even if we had a fiftea branch outside our office in Makati haha. I saw some people drinking it and asked several where to buy it. Of course with the mazelike structure of the area I couldn’t find it immediately but after much perseverance and more stopping people with fiftea drinks asking where they got it I saw the place!

I got lost somewhere here because the streets sorta looked the same to a tourist haha:

The fiftea drink I got was just okay. Zero sugar and the pearls weren’t sweetened so it very much tasted like… water lol. Wrong decision to not have a bit of sugar.

We played taiko drums and high tech Pong!

I was so happy when I saw a Sanseriya branch here! I remembered trying Sanseriya in Ueno Japan and loving it so I was excited to eat those garlicky escargots again. Really bad photo but really scrumptious snails:

For this trip, we had two priorities: Stationery and food haha. We didn’t go to touristy spots but plotted our itinerary based on recos from friends. To save money, I didn’t want to rent a pocket wifi so I just grabbed screenshots of places in google maps with the Chinese names of places and pointed to it when asking for directions. Super effective!

We arrived in Maokong and ate some street food from these stalls:

I’ve read that it’s common to drink tea when you ride the cable car to Maokong but it was sunny and we just drank lots of milk tea that cost around Php 30 from 711 so we skipped that. We did some exploring of the place though:

There were some food stalls in the area and we tried some of them. My food bucket list for Taiwan included stinky tofu, peanut cilantro ice cream, the OG milk tea, lots of milk tea, chicken popcorn, grilled squid and mushrooms, that big chicken cut into pieces and Din Tai Fung lol. We were able to try all of those. Yay!

My god the stinky tofu was extraordinarily stinky. They said your senses are heightened when you’re PMS-ing and maybe that was also a factor? If you had to ask, it tasted like a horse died in my mouth but that’s just me. I have friends who love it and hate things I love eating so to each their own haha. I didn’t think it would be that bad because I love fermented food and tofu but it just wasn’t a good match for me. Sorry. I tried once and gagged. I tried twice and decided I didn’t want to torture myself so I stopped haha.

I got excited when I saw the stand with the peanut brittle block. I’ve been watching a lot of videos and reading about Taiwanese street food and from the description of the peanut ice cream, I knew I had to try it.

They added 2 multiflavored ice cream scoops and cilantro to this and rolled the lumpia. The ice cream didn’t really taste like the flavors I expected and was icy rather than creamy but having the cilantro there was a nice contrast to the crunchiness of the peanuts and softness of the ice cream. It was okay. I imagined trying this out with a homemade version here. Like what if I used our mango ice cream and some grated cheese as well plus fresh mango chunks with the baguio peanut brittle that I crushed and cilantro? I think I want to try making my own version of this for merienda.

This was the small pear coated in sugar syrup. I think for this it’s best to have the softer fruits inside like the strawberry because the sugar coating was already hard and the pear was also hard so the combination was a bit of a challenge to eat when you don’t have strong teeth like me haha:

The winner here for us was the chopped fried chicken, which tasted like the chicken chops from Serenitea haha.

We did get to eat this yummy pizza and Jack daniels wings from this little foodtruck called Little New York in Songshan Cultural Park. We shared one order and we were both really fans of how it tasted:

The grilled mushrooms and squid tasted just okay. They were a bit tough. Nice concept though! I think the mushrooms would have tasted better if they were cut and dipped in the basting sauce before grilling. This would mean that the sauce would enter the inside and have it more flavorful since mushrooms without seasoning are generally bland. We had to spit out some of the skin because we really couldn’t chew it no matter how hard we tried. Maybe that’s why these mushroom types are better when stirfried or in soups. Now I get it.

The winner this night was the honey mustard takoyaki. We asked the vendor his preferred dressing because we originally picked soy. He said honey mustard and it was perfect for the takoyaki which needed lots of sauce to complement the dry batter and the creamy sauce was perfect for it. Really good!

The title of frog eggs for boba was really intriguing so I ordered a drink but with some miscommunication was handed a drink with aiyu jelly. The jelly was nice and tart but this drink was just way too sweet for me sadly. Perhaps when you order you can have the sugar syrup lessened?

There were so many milk tea stalls in the night market that sold milk tea for as low as around NTD20. We tried one randomly and it was okay. We still prefer the one we drank from 711, same price hehe.

There was a long line here and we needed a small table where we can eat our food so I also tried this milk tea place and realized I just ordered a brown sugar milk drink without tea. The chewiness of the boba was perfect and it was a good pairing with the creamy milk but once again it was too sweet for us. Lol. But what did I expect from a brown sugar drink right haha.

For my birthday this year, I celebrated with my love in Taiwan, where I was able to tick off a lot of boxes in my bucket list. 🙂 It’s been my dream to visit Taiwan because I heard a lot of great things about it, especially if you’re a stationery lover and a food lover lol (both me).

We were greeted by the sight of this:

Milktea and juices omg.

But my heart leapt at this sight:

My fave pon de ring donuts! Freshly made so they were perfect huhu

I also enjoyed drinking from that paper cup. So nifty!

Our first day had this magnificent blue sky, which was a delightful surprise because from our research and from the people we’ve talked to in Taiwan, the few days before this had gloomy rainy skies. This was a great way to start our vacation, thanks, Universe!

We were planning on riding the Maokong gondola and the weather was perfect for it. Saw this on our way to the station:

Tips: Ride the regular cable car instead of the glass bottom going up so that you don’t have to wait in line for an hour or so. When you go back, the lines are shorter since people already experienced the glass bottom one.

We also went to the Taipei zoo:

My fave parts of the zoo were the gift shops lol and that area where you can stuff all the crystals you want in a bottle:

Hello. My life has been through a lot of major changes lately and I’ve been trying my best to swim with it. I hope you’re all doing well and taking care of yourselves. Last weekend, my family was able to visit this quaint farm in Rizal, and I snapped some photos to help me remember how refreshing the vacation was:

I realized recently how much I missed blogging about where I’ve been and talking about those gems that caught my eye through the journey. Trying to change that, though! My trusty waterproof point and shoot Canon gave up after 10 years so am still thinking if I should buy another one like that. I loved it so much, and all my photos in the past were mostly taken using that. I dropped it so many times (once in the Great Wall where it almost gave up lol eep) and perhaps it should be laid to rest heh.

Anyway! Took some snaps in Virgin resort in Batangas and I have to say that it has the best shoreline in all the resorts we’ve tried in the area. Just take a look:

I’ve been pretty swamped with adult responsibilities lately and feeling a bit bummed. Luckily this trip gave me much needed “me” time. I played in the water, sank my toes in the sand, slept under a coconut tree and made art. All this while in the company of great friends. Thank you Universe!

I’ve always dreamt of having an artambay with friends outside of manila and recently that dream came true!
Visited one of my fave places in the Philippines, Baguio, with my friend Ella 🙂 Met up with Aileen and we had a mini artambay while munching on yummy pastries from Hill Station:

We explored Hoover dam and I really loved the art deco style and all the astronomical-related details there:

The door above was seen in the restroom, and I love how gold was everywhere: gold, rose gold, mint green and cream. 🙂

Bryce canyon was majestic. I was able to go down in some areas but went back because the sole of my shoes didn’t have enough traction and I didn’t want to injure myself. I took photos instead, and stalked chipmunks.

After New York, my cam’s memory card got so full so I had to resort to using my cellphone to take photos. These are all taken blindly with my phone. Samsung’s camera is clear, but i’m not too fond of it autofocusing all the time. Most of my photos are blurry lol and in the daylight I really did not see what I’m taking a photo of or if the photo was captured haha. It made me feel like it was an analog camera (every shot a surprise haha) which makes me feel a bit better. 🙂 Dear universe, I want a new camera with wifi please thank you lol.

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Mabuhay!

Hi! I'm Drea Dela Cruz, an artist/crafter from Manila, Philippines.

I love trying new things related to arts and crafts and experimenting with various materials.

I started this blog because I wanted to share my love for the DIY movement--I believe everyone has that artistic side that makes them unique and special and I support encouraging fellow makers. Keep on making things!

Aside from arts and crafts, I also enjoy reading books and magazines, playing with stray cats, traveling, and eating. I'd love to share my artsy-craftsy adventures and journey with you here!

If you wanna get in touch with me, kindly email: mabuhaydiy@gmail.com.